Behavior Is Contagious – Especially With Fibromyalgia

People with fibromyalgia face many obstacles.

We live with fatigue, brain fog, chronic pain and other symptoms. We work to find ways to manage this syndrome. We seek coping mechanisms. Many fibro patients have overlook the importance of who and what we surround ourselves with.

This can have a dramatic affect on how we cope.

Conserving energy is an important part to coping with “Fibro Fatigue”. It takes far more energy to deal with negative people. Energy when you don’t have any left to expend.

Let’s look at who we surround ourselves with and the effects on our lives.

People You Should Remove from Your Life

You have to cut the “downers” the negative people

You have to cut out the “distractors”

You have to get rid of “people who play the victim”

You have to stay away from “know-it-alls”

You have to dump the “drama queens/kings”

Neuroscience 101 Good and Bad Behavior Is Contagious

One study found that emotions circulate through interpersonal relationships just like the flu virus.

These patterns can actually be tracked statistically just like the flu virus.

Each positive person you surround yourself with increases your chances of being positive by eleven percent.

Each negative person you let into your life more than doubles your chances of being negative.

Understanding Why This Happens

A mirror neuron is a cell in your brain that fires both when you act and when you observe another person acting. Interacting with other people engages your mirror neuron system.

This brain mechanism causes you to copy other people whether you want to or not. If you spend enough time with anyone, no matter who it is, you will start to mimic their behavior.

This means you need to start cutting negative people out of your life right now.

Here is a short 2 minute video explaining mirror neurons

Here are five types of people to start avoiding now!

# 1 The “Downer”

Some people can walk into a room and light it up. Other people walk into a room and kill it.

Downers Are Those That Kill Positive Energy

They are those people who seem to have a dark cloud following them wherever they go. These people are unlucky, negative and always depressed.

Don’t feel bad for these people. Odds are:

They like being miserable WHY? They like the attention it gives them

You must drop unhappy people from your life. Why?

Because your happiness and your physical health depends on it. Research shows that being exposed to negative people pulls away neurons in your hippocampus. This is the part of your brain that is responsible for problem solving. This means that negative people literally rot your brain

Stop hanging out with people who suck away your energy

#2 Avoid Distracting People

Distractors come in a variety of flavors

There are those annoying people who drive you nuts.

People who make you focus on them instead of focusing on yourself and your mission.

Distractors are also those people that are truly amazing or really hot or incredibly brilliant.]

Those people who catch your eye for one reason or another.

Distractors make you forget about your goals and everything that you’ve set out to do in life.

A lot of promising futureshave been sacrificed to these distractors.

Some people drop out of school or quit a job they love, just to be closer to a distracting person. This allows them stay in that distracting relationship.

Others get hooked on celebrity gossip or get rich quick schemes

Everything that glitters is not always gold.

Most shiny things are just distractions and this can include people.

Don’t let any person make you forget that you are amazing – and that you have something amazing to offer the world.

#3 Stay Away from People Who Play the Victim

Don’t know how to identify a victim?

Here’s what you look for:

Look for people who preach self-sacrifice

Look for people who try to make you feel guilty for your strengths

Look for people who try to make you feel guilty for your accomplishments

Look for people who try to make you feel bad just because they are feeling bad

Victims are:

Masters of positioning themselves on the moral high ground

Using obligation to manipulate you into doing what they want you to do.

People who like to make you feel responsible for their happiness.

No one is responsible for someone else’s happiness

#4 Stay away from know-it-alls

Know-it-alls are those people who will never let you live down past mistakes. They bring you down by using the psychological phenomenons of “Imposter Syndrome” and “Negativity Bias.”

Imposter Syndrome is describe as the inability to internalize your own accomplishments. It’s that voice in your head that creeps up every now and then telling you that you’re a phony and it’s only a matter of time until people find out.

Negativity Bias on the other hand refers to your brains preference for negative information over positive information.

Never allow anyone to make you feel bad about yourself.

Don’t let some” Know-it-All” use these techniques against you.

Focus on where you are now. Not on your past mistakes.

#5 Refuse to be around drama queens.

Drama queens/kings are those people who love conflict.They are addicted to drama and to winning arguments no matter the cost.Even if there’s nothing to be won. Drama queenslove drama for the sake of drama.

They don’t want to win or find a solution they just want the drama.

Their minds are simple and their lives are boring.

The only way they can fill a sense of purpose in life is by creating drama.

Don’t let these people suck you into their drama.

Any time you spend trying to correct or even understand a drama queen is a waste of time. You are better off ignoring these people period.

2 Comments

Hi Thom, I so agree that negativity can really have a bad effect upon anyone but when your energy reserves are down – like they are in Fibromyalgia or any chronic illness – I thinks it amplifies. It was fascinating to read the science behind it. I also found myself at work more and more wearing my “armour” to protect myself from all the kinds of negative behaviours you mention. It is a great reminder that our mood affects others.